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I've been working on a new rendering style for our homes this weekend and the attached image is what I've ended up with. I used TurboCAD, SketchUp and Photoshop to get the drawing to this point. Your critiques are welcome.

Great, Brad. I've been messing around with the Photoshop Watercolor filter some time ago, but you really made it work.It certainly is very usefull to get the technical feel out of a straight forward elevation.

I've been working on a new rendering style for our homes this weekend and the attached image is what I've ended up with. I used TurboCAD, SketchUp and Photoshop to get the drawing to this point. Your critiques are welcome.

Remarkable work Brad. The water colour effect is graphically quite true. The lines around the foreground trees are somewhat of a deterrent for me. Thanks for sharing your work again. - Al

WD: This isn't my personal home, but one that we are building for a local couple.

Al: I wondered how folks would feel about the sketching around the foreground trees. Something I don't care for in our current rendering style is that the landscaping is so brightly colored that it really over takes the house visually. I wanted to somewhat mute the foreground trees and even more so the background trees to add more focus on the house. The difference between the two is subtle, so I added the sketchy lines to help break the foreground and background elements apart. I appreciate your input.

Richard: I did poke around a bit in the sketchucation forums during this exercise. :)

Brad, I would like to hear about your workflow. What part of the process did you use TurboCAD & SketchUp? Thanks.

I generally model in either TC or SketchUp and sometimes both. I find there are times when it's much simpler to accomplish something in one versus the other. I love the current compatibility between the two.

This time, the modeling was done in SketchUp only. I applied the materials in SketchUp and saved (2) 2D images. One containing the textures, shadows and environment with no edges, and one containing nothing but edges with jaggies and extensions turned on (black lines on a white background).

In Photoshop I used a combination of filters on the texture layer to get the watercolor effect. First was "Ripple" (Medium, 50%). I made 2 copies of the result and filtered one with "Dry Brush" and the other with "Watercolor". I adjusted the opacity of those over the "Ripple" effect to get the right mix.

TurboCAD's task on this one was to render some soft shadows. They are most noticeable in the eves and through the entry court. On it's own, SketchUp doesn't provide any gradient to the these areas, so they end up looking rather flat and monotonous once you go to work on the watercolor effects. I tried to render the soft shadows within SketchUp using Renditioner, but the settings had to be cranked up to get the result I was after and the rendering time was not good. So, I switched over to TC and got what I needed in about five minutes. I adjusted the shadows to taste using "Levels" and added some grain, then blended using "Multiply".

Now for the line work. I like to filter the line work in Photoshop with "Diffuse Glow". It gives the lines a grainy quality that mimics pencil lines when blended using "Multiply". Adjusting the opacity lets you fine tune the effect.

The final step was to create a paper texture layer and blend it over the other layers using "Hard Light".

Brad, I would like to hear about your workflow. What part of the process did you use TurboCAD & SketchUp? Thanks.

I generally model in either TC or SketchUp and sometimes both. I find there are times when it's much simpler to accomplish something in one versus the other. I love the current compatibility between the two.

This time, the modeling was done in SketchUp only. I applied the materials in SketchUp and saved (2) 2D images. One containing the textures, shadows and environment with no edges, and one containing nothing but edges with jaggies and extensions turned on (black lines on a white background).

In Photoshop I used a combination of filters on the texture layer to get the watercolor effect. First was "Ripple" (Medium, 50%). I made 2 copies of the result and filtered one with "Dry Brush" and the other with "Watercolor". I adjusted the opacity of those over the "Ripple" effect to get the right mix.

TurboCAD's task on this one was to render some soft shadows. They are most noticeable in the eves and through the entry court. On it's own, SketchUp doesn't provide any gradient to the these areas, so they end up looking rather flat and monotonous once you go to work on the watercolor effects. I tried to render the soft shadows within SketchUp using Renditioner, but the settings had to be cranked up to get the result I was after and the rendering time was not good. So, I switched over to TC and got what I needed in about five minutes. I adjusted the shadows to taste using "Levels" and added some grain, then blended using "Multiply".

Now for the line work. I like to filter the line work in Photoshop with "Diffuse Glow". It gives the lines a grainy quality that mimics pencil lines when blended using "Multiply". Adjusting the opacity lets you fine tune the effect.

The final step was to create a paper texture layer and blend it over the other layers using "Hard Light".

Hopefully this all makes sense.

RE:Hopefully this all makes sense.OK, I can make sense (theoretically) of what you did......

But.......... Seriously, how do you learn this stuff? Trial and error, I really doubt it was from reading the Manual.

Superb, this is more like art, there's even textures on the paper!!! If only I.............. Well someday.....

I've tweaked my process a bit and I think I'm now happy with it. I was somewhat lost on how to keep the window idea going, and at the same time remove some emphasis from them. The "Crosswater-B" image illustrates my fix. I made the simulated reflections more abstract, added some color variation and brushed them on using diagonal strokes.

The heavy lifting for modeling was done in TC for these two. Once you have a few styles setup, walls and windows can be done very quickly in TC. Hipped roofs are fast as well. I'm still deciding whether TC or SU is more efficient with gable roofs though. The benefit to using TC is the ability to edit the roof component. That being said, I end up exploding them most of the time when modeling complex roofs.

Brad, That is exactly what I would want to see as a client!! So impressive! I think artistic presentations like this do much more to sell an idea then a standard photoreal visualization. You have me thinking.